BY HENRY MILLER | SPECIAL TO THE MONITOR
McALLEN — Following Monday night’s Class 5A bi-district girls basketball playoff game between Mission Veterans and Donna High, both coaches talked about the emotions from the start of the contest.
“I think we came out and maybe were just a bit nervous, and that made a difference early,” Donna coach Kevin Kromer said.
“We were a little too excited and wound up quite a bit coming out,” Mission Veterans coach Rafael Cantu Jr. said.
With the game tied at seven midway through the first quarter, the Patriots were the first to get those emotions under control and went on a 23-5 run to finish the first half en route to a convincing 53-27 win at McAllen Rowe High School.
Free throws severely hurt Donna, which came in as the third-place representative from District 32-5A. The team converted just 4 of 16 opportunities.
“That’s going to hurt your confidence, especially under this type of atmosphere, where it’s loud and playoff basketball,” Kromer said. “We just couldn’t make anything.”
Leading 16-7 after one quarter, Mission Veterans started getting into the groove, pushing the ball at every opportunity. The team outscored Donna 14-5 in the second quarter. Kaylee Flores scored eight points in the quarter, including six on a pair of 3-pointers. She led all scorers with 18 points on the night.
“I think once we got over the excitement, we started playing our game and settled in,” Cantu said. “We wanted to push the ball and keep it moving and keep the tempo up. We didn’t want to get in a slow-paced game where they could just throw the ball into the low post.”
Donna turned the ball over several times trying to force it inside to either Miranda Sandoval or Nicole Rodriguez, and Veterans sophomore point guard Ronnie Cantu quickly took off for a fast-break opportunity. Twice in the fourth quarter she stole a pass and went coast to coast, scoring on layups both times. When they weren’t running it, the Patriots were quickly passing the ball around the perimeter or getting it inside to Jackie Howell, who finished the night with 13 points.
Donna scored just one point in the third quarter and didn’t score a field goal in the second half until Brianna Quesada’s runner in the lane with 5:38 remaining.
“The big thing was we moved our feet on defense,” Cantu said. “We need to move our feet and help on defense, and we knew we were going to play a very aggressive team, so we had to move and help. The girls did a great job there.”
“We forced shots and didn’t take shots when we were wide open,” Kromer said. “You can’t beat a great team like this when you miss that many shots and free throws.
Quesada led Donna in scoring with nine points — eight coming in the fourth quarter. Sandoval added eight for Donna, which won 20 games this year, and Kromer said his team should be proud of its accomplishments.
“We had a very good year — a year better than last year,” Kromer said. “The girls don’t need to remember this performance as the way they play. They didn’t play like this all year. It was a good season.”